Family of missing man views video
The FBI said its investigtaion is not complete.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- Family members of Daniel Di-Piero, 21, missing from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship since Monday morning, said they believe he is dead.
DiPiero's parents, Ronald and Susan DiPiero of Turner Road, had boarded the ship Mariner of the Seas on Wednesday at St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, along with FBI agents. They saw a surveillance tape they said shows Daniel, sick at the rail on a deck, accidentally tumble into the sea, said Tracy Naples Gassen, spokeswoman for the family.
His body has not been found. The Coast Guard, which began searching for him Tuesday morning, called off the search at 2:45 p.m. Wednesday.
A Coast Guard spokesman said the Guard searched more than 900 miles by water and air.
DiPiero was reported missing Monday morning by a group of friends who were traveling with him. The ship had left Port Canaveral, Fla., on Sunday morning for the Bahamas, and had docked Monday on Coco Cay, an island there owned by the cruise line.
His friends reported him missing at 11 a.m., but the Coast Guard was not notified until 7 p.m. The cruise line had said it waited because it wanted to make sure DiPiero was not on the ship and that he was not on Coco Cay.
Original report
The cruise line reported at first that a surveillance tape showed DiPiero lying in a deck chair on the fourth deck for about two hours between midnight Sunday and 2:15 a.m. Monday. The company had said DiPiero was seen in the video leaning on the rail, but said nothing about him falling over.
Michael Sheehan, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean, acknowledged that it seemed apparent all along that DiPiero had fallen over the rail. He said the company reported that to the Coast Guard. He said, though, that the accident had to be confirmed by the FBI and the Coast Guard, which did reach that conclusion. They concluded DiPiero fell over the rail at 2:16 a.m., he said.
Royal Caribbean also said the FBI's investigation revealed DiPiero and his friends had been drinking before the accident. "The young man was served five drinks over a four-hour period -- from 8 p.m. to midnight Sunday," the company said.
The cruise line also said DiPiero and three roommates brought three bottles of liquor onto the ship in their luggage, which is against company policy, and drank it Sunday afternoon and evening.
Carol Michalick, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Tampa, said she would not confirm or deny what the cruise line is reporting. She said the agency is still sorting through facts.
On break from YSU
Gassen, of Rochester, Mich., a cousin of Ronald DiPiero's, said the family "feels an enormous sense of loss" and just wants closure.
Daniel's grandmother, Audrey DiPiero of Austintown, talked Wednesday about her grandson.
He enjoyed carpentry and was mechanically inclined. He liked rollerblading, rock-wall climbing, skiing and bicycling, she said. Though he was on a break from studies at Youngstown State University, he planned to return to school in the fall.
Gassen said he planned to buy a house. "He was working on his degree -- you know, it [his major] changes over time," she said.
DiPiero lived with his parents and two sisters, Katie, a Canfield High School senior, and Josie, 13. Another sister, Annamarie Heasley, lives in Nevada.
'Kind young man'
He graduated from Canfield High School in 2003. Schools Superintendent Dante Zambrini said he was DiPiero's middle school principal.
"I did know him, as a kind young man, well-respected by the faculty," Zambrini said. He said DiPiero was quiet but made friends easily. "We're all very sad," he said.
Audrey DiPiero and Gassen said he was thoughtful and kind.
"I'd come home and the grass would be cut," Audrey DiPiero said. "You didn't have to ask him to do anything."
Their family is close, she said, and one young relative with cerebral palsy had a special relationship with Daniel.
That relative is 12-year-old Ellie, Gassen's daughter.
At weddings, he would make it a point to ask Ellie to dance, Audrey DiPiero said.
"She probably talked to him every day -- from Michigan," Gassen said. "He was truly, truly nice."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.